Much of Hollywood went on strike for residuals and fair wages in 2023, but even today at the pinnacle of the industry, things are still quite bleak. The Brutalist writer-director Brady Corbet was almost completely broke at one point, despite his film receiving 10 Oscar nominations this year. In a conversation on Marc Maron’s WTF With Marc Maron podcast, Corbet shared that he and his life/writing partner Mona Fastvold received “zero dollars” for their last two films, forcing him to take a job directing advertisements in Portugal recently. “It’s the first time that I had made really any money in years,” Corbet said. “We had to just sort of live off of a paycheck from three years ago.”
According to the director, he’s not the only one struggling to make ends meet. “I’ve spoken to many filmmakers that have films that are nominated this year that can’t pay their rent,” he said. While he didn’t name any names, he did put forth this depressing not-so-hypothetical: “You’re not paid to be promoting a film, and if you look at certain films that premiered in Cannes, that was almost a year ago… Our film premiered in September so I’ve been doing this for six months and had zero income because I don’t have any time to work.” He can’t even take a writing job, he shared, because he’s been too busy doing international press for The Brutalist—a demanding, seven-day-a-week grind. The last time he had a single day off he was over Christmas.
This isn’t the first time Corbet—who somehow shot his gargantuan-feeling epic for only $10 million across 33 days—has talked about the dire impact of this industry-wide financial situation on the art he’s able to produce. “I said to my wife, ‘There’s no way in hell we’re going to shoot this in the U.S.'” he told fellow Best Director nominee Sean Baker during a conversation the pair had for Variety. (The Brutalist, while set in Pennsylvania, was largely filmed in Hungary.) Baker then shared that he had a similar experience with his Best Picture nominee Anora. “I eventually have to get out of this country. It’s very expensive to shoot here. It’s really, really difficult,” Baker said. “The way I was able to shoot in New York this time around was to do it tiny and under the radar. Use all the guerrilla indie techniques. To put all the money on the screen by making, borrowing and stealing. But I don’t know how much longer I can do that. It’s taxing on everybody.”
